The Oxford English Dictionary’s Web site has appealed to the public for help in identifying a mysterious book, “Meanderings of Memory.” The book is cited as an early source for words like “chapelled” (“adj. placed or stationed in a chapel”), “revirginize” (“trans. to render virginal again”) and forty-seven others. “We have been unable to trace this title in library catalogues or text databases,” they announced,

All these quotations have a date of 1852, and some cite the author as ‘Nightlark’.

The only evidence for this book’s existence that we have yet been able to find is a single entry in a bookseller’s catalogue.